IEEE 1847 Location Services for Healthcare (LS-H) Working Group

Purpose

The purpose of the IEEE P1847 Location Services for Healthcare (LS-H) Working Group is to develop standards that:

  • Improve interoperability
  • Help to avoid costly redundancy of converging products
  • Maximize reuse and utility of the functionality
  • Improve consumer confidence

The workgroup has built a common framework that serves as foundation for standards such as Use Case Definitions, Location Data Management, EMR Data Exchange, and Medical Device Integration. The group is a multidisciplinary effort of dozens of participants that are affiliated with various healthcare organizations and vendors.

Questions, Comments, or Ideas? E-mail [email protected].

Background

Location Services, a collection of complimentary location technologies such as RTLS, RFID, GPS and others, is now common-place in the consumer mobile market enabling many features from search context to wayfinding. This information service is rapidly becoming mission critical for inpatient and outpatient healthcare. There is a multitude of business use cases to improve efficiency and effectiveness of operations such as Asset and Supply Tracking, Temperature Monitoring, Surgical Workflow, Hand Hygiene, Clinical Workflow, and many others.

Today, healthcare providers are faced with a complex buying decision since the available products are often niche and proprietary resulting in different data models, different data flows, and unique architectures. While some of these differences represent value-added differentiation, most are artifacts of a lack of available standards and the desire for suppliers to compete with one another for new business. Providers are thus reluctant to risk large, enterprise-class investments until industry maturity and alignment is achieved.

Workgroup History

  • Group Formation
    • Feb 2014   Intelligent Hospital Symposium, Orlando
    • Jun 2014   IEEE Exploratory RTLS Webinar
    • Aug 2014   IEEE Exploratory RTLS Face-to-Face, IL
    • Dec 2014   IEEE PAR LSH P1847 Approved
    • Mar 2015   IEEE-SA LSH Rename and Co-Sponsorship
  • P1847 Common Framework
    • Jun 2015   Face-to-Face Working Group, NJ
    • Dec 2015   Initial Development, Virtual
    • Mar 2016   Review Working Group, Virtual
    • Aug 2016   Ad hoc Reviews, Virtual
    • Apr 2017   Face-to-Face Working Group, DC
    • Sep 2017   Face-to-Face Working Group, CA
    • Feb 2018   Face-to-Face Working Group, CA
    • Jun 2018   Review Working Group, Virtual
    • Jan 2019   Working Group eBallot Approval
    • Apr 2019   EMB Approval
    • Aug 2019   Sponsor Ballot Approval
    • Oct 2019   Face-to-Face Working Group, CA
    • Nov 2019   RevCom and IEEE-SA Approval